


Mo learns the meaning of Regret

by Eloquent_Vowel



Series: Fictober2020 [1]
Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), Original Work
Genre: Angst, Death, Fictober, Minor Violence, Regret, nothing too graphic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-01
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:20:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26747980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eloquent_Vowel/pseuds/Eloquent_Vowel
Summary: Written for Fictober20 using the prompt. 'No, come back!'
Series: Fictober2020 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1947466
Comments: 2
Kudos: 2
Collections: Fictober20





	Mo learns the meaning of Regret

Perhaps it was because she had never had someone that had cared for her. Perhaps that was the reason she refused to let go. Regret was something that she had not yet learned to handle. When she escaped her ‘home’, pushing her mother down the stairs, she never even considered to look over her shoulder despite the sickening crunching sounds which echoed through the quiet night. She never considered that every monster she felled could have been more than that, a monster. When she had latched onto Williamson in the forest she did not think of the consequences her actions would have on the old man.

Williamson had come at the writings of her mother, he was yet another in a long line of stern humans that had come to inspect her, to try and find out what she was. But something had marked him as different in Mo’s mind. From the moment he opened the iron door into her room, his eyes fell straight to her ankle and instead of the usual scoff and pitying look the others had had, Williamson looked sad. Perhaps it was a deeper grief than Mo knew, but she had never been a good judgement of intention. Her mother had offered the same amount of gold as before, but Williamson had not taken it. The exchange was strange, short and silent. The outcome of their silent talk had displeased mother, she left and stormed down the stairs, Williamson hovered. Thin frame shaded by the setting sun, Mo thought that they had made eye contact but now she was not so sure. He dropped something on the floor as he left, Mo only noticed once it clashed against the door as it shut. A small knife. An escape.

Mo had no hesitation, she had launched that night, stealing the key to her shackles and escaping into the forest. Leaving mother behind. The forest was freeing, it was quiet and so Mo screamed, she let herself free without consequences. That freedom is what brought Williamson to her, that night, under misted moonlight she met the man of her dreams. Armed with a shimmering longsword and vials of mystic concoction. He was hesitant when she asked him to teach her, but somehow she had convinced him to teach her his solitary ways. 

They travelled for years together, until Mo could hunt as Williamson could. She was his shadow, one that he attempted in vain to prevent from dancing away from him. He was the only being to show her any form of kindness, so when he told her of his ‘Retirement’ she had fought him. He tried to tell her that his sword arm is not as it was, she lunged at him. He parried. He tried to tell her that his reflexes were not as they used to be, she tried to trip him. He evaded. Every reason he had was wrong. So when Mo had caught him trying to leave her in the early hours of sunrise, she cried. He was everything she knew, everything she held dear. She had yelled and screamed at him, clung to his arm with cries of.

‘No, come back!’  
Mo never understood why he would want to leave her. Until now. Now as she killed the Dire wolf in front of her and turned to see Williamson falter. Dire Wolves were easy, they always had been, Williamson had always felled the beasts within seconds. So why? So why was he faltering? Why was he bleeding? Why... 

Mo watched as Williamson dropped his longsword. The Dire wolf rested slightly, but Williamson did not move. He knelt on the damp grass of the forest, turned his head over his shoulder at Mo. He smiled but his eyes echoed the first time they had met. Thin frame shaded by the rising sun as the wolf made its final move. 

Regret. Mo understood why Williamson had wanted to leave her all those months ago. In their profession, old age was a blessing that few could partake in and fewer could fully experience the meaning of family. So as Mo launched into the wolf, screaming at the world, she regretted every plea she had made. With every swing of her sword she wished to go back in time, so that she could take back the words- ‘No, come back!’


End file.
